Environmental sustainability cannot be decoupled from social and economic policies. Around the world, nations adopt socio-economic practices that can either support environmental sustainability initiatives or undermine them. Dr. Kate O’Neill draws on her experience at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to compare the social and economic factors driving environmental practices in the UAE, United States, and elsewhere in the world.

In 1987 the United Nations defined sustainability as "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Since then, an accelerating global demand for natural resources has exceeded the earth's ability to replenish itself.

Focusing on the Mercy Critical Concern of care for the earth, the 2018 Fall Faculty Series looks at the human relationship with the planet we call home and explores the environmental, economic, social, and spiritual causes and consequences of a growing planetary crisis.